


A Moving Sea

by AJsregrettabledecisions



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Mild Angst, Music, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, ive definitely used both whoops, should witcher be spelt with a capital W yes or no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24660736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJsregrettabledecisions/pseuds/AJsregrettabledecisions
Summary: Jaskier takes to writing songs about a woman he’s supposedly in love with. The woman is actually make-believe; the love he sings about is not.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 165





	A Moving Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken as a tiny snippet from Khalil Gibran ‘Love One Another’ – a really sweet quote, in full at the end notes.  
> I keep getting sideswiped by things I want to write about these two, wowsers… Just a concept I started with the intent of having it a drabble and then whoosh, it happened to be more. It’s a little disjointed as I wrote it mostly in one go, then tagged on an end bit set post-finale.  
> Unbeta’d, please tell me of any typos/nonsense sentences! Hopefully the tense doesn’t change too much, I’m awful at maintaining it.

Jaskier is so in love with Geralt he wants to sing it from the rooftops. He knows he can’t, though – what they have is a tentative friendship at best, and he’s not going to risk that by making songs about the stupid smile he gets when Geralt so much as twitches his lips at one of Jaskier’s jokes, or the way his heart _soars_ when Geralt actually smiles at him properly. No, he can sing about the man’s brutal strength, but not the gentleness that he touches Jaskier with; can’t write ballads of the man’s nobility and need to protect, but can of his great battles.

Well, he can, but only _platonically_. He can write a million and one ballads of the White Wolf, defender of man, just, brave, et cetera, et cetera… But he can’t write songs about what it is to be held close by him; treasured, kissed. Can’t write songs of how much he craves that, wants it but knows he can’t have it.

Damn it all though, Jaskier is a _bard_ , music is woven into his soul alongside eager emotion and excessive dramatics. So he does write – writes beautiful, passionate love songs, and serenades to the owner of his heart, and ballads and prose declaring his devotion, all in spite of the fact that his love will never be returned.

He just… doesn’t write them about _Geralt_. Certainly he writes them about his love for the man, just changes every single lyric describing his love as the exact opposite of his darling witcher, so that no one in the entire continent will ever be able to tell who they’re about.

It makes for… Interesting storytelling. Instead of a brave, strong, handsome man, with brilliant amber eyes and hair like snow and a voice that haunts his dreams; a man noble and just and caring, if gruff and unsociable – instead of Geralt, wild and fierce and intense, he gets…

Jaskier hasn’t named her yet. Naturally, she doesn’t really exist, but when he’s written so much about her, he can’t help but feel he’s doing her an injustice by leaving her unnamed. She’s a slight thing, petite and soft, noble not of heart but of blood. Dark brown hair, almost black (but not quite, black is Yen’s colour, after all), and eyes a bright meadow green.

This nameless woman of his dresses as brightly as Jaskier does, and is as useless as he is with a blade. But she’s not quietly warm like Geralt, as she is his opposite, as best Jaskier could manage. She is blatantly callous and dismissive and cold – which, to be fair, is slightly like Geralt. But on Geralt it’s a front; this woman is genuinely that cruel. In his songs she beds Jaskier and promises him the world and leaves him, laughing and mocking as she goes, after every meeting of theirs. She’s plain _mean_ and the closer Jaskier gets to her, the worse she gets.

Unlike Geralt, who, slowly but surely, has been growing warmer, more welcoming, more at ease with opening up to Jaskier. Unlike Geralt, who seems so reluctant to part at times, eyes always lighting up when they cross paths once more. Unlike Geralt, who promises him nothing but shows in his actions a fondness and concern Jaskier has rarely felt in his life.

So the woman Jaskier sings of is lacking in all that Geralt is rich, but the love Jaskier sings of is _real_. He sings of her eyes in his dreams, her smile lighting his day, her attention enriching his soul. Sings of his heart stuttering at her touch; of how there is no better place for him than by her side. And he weaves into his music the same thing he feels for Geralt:

Despite all the bad, all the rough nights and harsh treatment, despite not being loved in turn – being able to love him and be present in his life is enough.

-

Jaskier’s songs of the woman always started first as songs of Geralt. Writing poetry about the strength of his hands and the warmth of his touch, and then reworking it into softness and ice, so that he could sing and share his emotions, his love and sorrow, with the source remaining undetected.

Jaskier had a notebook and a half, both bound in bright leather and spelled shut, dedicated solely to Geralt. They were costly, but certainly worth it. He had another, less protected notebook that had the… _translations_ , so to speak, of his poetry on Geralt. For the most part he kept all three out of sight. It’s not like Geralt would ever try to look at them; he’d never shown an interest in the scrawled words before. But it was a precaution Jaskier had to take.

Now, though, he had the book for his woman on his knee, absentmindedly jotting down chord progressions as he tried them out, crossing and rewriting and notating each line. For now, he was trying to perfect his first song. He’d decided to make a cycle of them, keeping something familiar across each song so they could be recognised as companion pieces. Jaskier was yet to perform any of the work, not even reciting the more poetic verses he’d yet to turn to song, but he wanted to be able to debut _something_ when they next reached a city.

And sure enough, when they get to a moderately sized city and find a tavern with a pleasant enough response to Jaskier’s music, he debuts his first song of the cycle: _A Noble Eye_.

It’s about catching the bright green eyes of his woman, and how in the instant she becomes a muse. It’s a variant on their first meeting, though Jaskier has gone to great lengths to ensure that is not obvious. It’s a simple enough song, a little wistful, a little awing. It speaks of a simple love, that anyone can relate to, and holds none of the tragedy he’s already planning to incorporate into the rest of the cycle. He lets a little bit of scandal into it, singing of soft lips and skin and plump breasts and hips – not quite bawdy, but relatable as the comfort of the touch of another often is.

It’s a classic folk song, the love simple and connecting, and he gets a roar of cheers and a handful of appreciative looks from ladies. After that, he starts a song, someone else’s, about another noble lady, this one far less about true love and far more about satisfying lust, the scandalous lyrics gaining whistles and cheers from the assembled crowd.

He made a note to not look at Geralt as he sang his newest song, not wanting to stutter over his words as he sung about the love he felt while looking at the source. Later though, when Jaskier falls face first onto his bed with a tired groan, Geralt quietly compliments it. Not exactly lavishing praise, but _it’s good_ from the lips of the man who inspired it warms Jaskier to his core, and he can’t shake his dopey smile for some time after that.

-

The next piece is as yet unnamed, but is finished and tied into the first well enough that Jaskier performs the first and second when he next finds a suitable crowd. The second is much more lustful, all the things he’s not shared with Geralt, and ties in nicely to the first as the lyrics about the woman’s body move on to her touch. It’s faster, a good foot-stomper, but still twists love in with the lust. It ends, though, with a twist, as the bard in love gets left to wake alone.

He doesn’t let it be sad – it’s not a _sad_ ending, not yet, so the last lines are about inspiration to pursue his muse, and the cheeky determination of a youth in pursuit of his passion. Relatable, much like the first was, and energetic enough for a busy, drunken crowd. It gets a decent cheer, and inspires a series of requests for increasingly more crude songs, that have Jaskier and the crowd laughing at the tales of drunken romps with crones and falling into bed with lords instead of their wives.

That night, in their room, Jaskier adjusted a couple lines in his song, fixing what didn’t work as well in a performance as it did on his own. Geralt watched him silently from the tub.

“Is it a cycle, then?” the witcher asked quietly. Jaskier grinned brilliantly at him, nodding energetically.

“I’m thinking five songs,” he starts, and proceeds to babble about the other two cycles he’s written, one about Geralt himself – the platonic one, about the witcher and his work – and one a set of working songs for labourers.

Geralt just watches him quietly, as he always seems to do, a gentle, if mild, fondness in his eyes. It makes Jaskier _beam_.

-

The third song is when things sour a bit. The bard finds his noble love once more, only for her to laugh and walk away. But the bard is confident he can win her affections, and sets to wooing her. It’s a song trading turns of more and more extravagant gifts, and how _they won’t sway her, oh nay, oh nay, but try again, she may let you stay_. Rejection, and the hope of flirtations being accepted, are certainly a common tune across all levels of society, and it slots in nicely after the bard being abandoned by his love.

It’s perhaps not as well received as the first two, but by the second chorus a handful were joining in on the recurrent lines, which was acceptable enough. At the end of his night he took to it fiercely, unhappy with different sections now that he’d had a crowd. He adjusted the recurrent lines slightly to fit the tempo better, and adjusted the rhyming structure to be less blatant.

He’s so consumed in his composing he hardly notices the tankard of mead placed beside him, or the gentle hand in his hair as he scribbled furiously at the pages devoted to the song, annotating and scratching out and drawing arrow upon arrow to where he wrote the replacement refrains. A moment after the hand leaves, Jaskier realised what happened.

Glancing over to where Geralt had already settled in bed, back to Jaskier, the bard couldn’t help the sense of sheer _elation_ that came from the gesture, and sipped at the mead, giddy.

-

The fourth song is more bitter and sorrowful than the others. It’s a song about love not being returned, about being left behind for another. The man his woman comes to love is beautiful and powerful and noble, all that the bard is not, and the bard is cast aside. It is a song about heartbreak, and as much as he tries to describe the man differently, he still sings of how he’s laden with jewels and has hair like a raven’s wings. It’s Yennefer, of course, and it comes about because the witch had come to find Geralt, and Jaskier had been left alone, in what should have been _their room_ , while Geralt was off bedding the witch somewhere far from Jaskier.

He is bitter and lonely and angry and so very, very sad, and the words flow from his mind to his fingertips to his page, and then to his mouth once he has a tune for them. It takes a while for him to find a crowd suited to hear it – it’s not easy to find a crowd wanting for songs of _misery_. But he’s not with Geralt, currently, and the crowd consists of a mixture of tradesmen and a fair number of women. It’s quiet, not loud and riotous like many tavern’s he’s found himself in.

So he sings the quiet, mournful ballad. It’s not quite as blatantly about Yennefer as some of his bitter poetry has clearly been, but it’s still about her, and about how much more she’ll forever mean to Geralt than he will. It gets a smattering of claps, not the sort of song to be cheered to, and he picks up a happier local tune afterwards. When he takes a break, he gets a number more free drinks than normal, and one very bold, very beautiful lady whispers to him that such an ungrateful woman doesn’t belong in his bed – offers to take that place herself, if he wants.

And he does, and he takes her to bed, and bless the woman, she holds him and stays with him ‘til morning, kissing his cheek warmly and giving him a name and house should he pass through town again. Something about the way she touched him made Jaskier _know_ she knew the same heartbreak he sung about; like they were both wishing for others as they touched one another. He endeavoured to find her again should he pass through.

It’s not Geralt holding him, touching him, wanting him. It’s not his so-called _noble lady_. But this woman is someone who understands the want, and the inability to have, so he finds himself in her bed some more. It’s never more than lust and a likeminded companionship, though – she’s just as hung up on her love as he is on his.

-

The fifth song is a triumphant end, and entirely impossible. It’s what he wants with Geralt, and knows he won’t ever have. In the end, the bard swears to love the woman forever, no matter who else she loves, and promises to be by her side if she ever wants him. And sure enough, she comes to him, begging to be with him, confessing adoration as true and honest as the bard’s, that she had been scared of and so denied. It is a love song for the ages, and Jaskier adores it, and its happily ever after where the bard and his woman run away together.

Of course, this is not how it is in reality, and happily ever afters are rare, so after its success, Jaskier quietly writes a sixth song. It’s not as blatantly a member of the cycle, as it is not about a woman and the bard that loves her. It still carries the same melody at points, and can be played through straight from the end of the fifth, but it’s not one he chooses to play as part of the cycle.

-

Jaskier performs the last of his song cycle, named _A Lark and A Swan_ , in a dingy inn on a town on the road. It was the final piece of the cycle of _The Woman in White_ , his masterpiece, his silent declaration of love undying to Geralt. It’s a song laden with metaphors about a lark loving a swan. The lark is sweet and loving and sings to her, and the swan is elegant and graceful but, just like the real beasties they are, bites and squabbles if the lark gets too close. It ends as a not-quite tragedy, with the lark content to sing and follow the swan, even as the swan finds a mate, never close enough to touch, never being loved in turn, but happy and joyful nonetheless.

In the original form, that he wrote it in, it was a lark and a wolf, and the wolf never let the lark close enough to touch, but never hurt it or chased it off, like the swan did. So the lark was content to follow and sing and love. Changed over to describe his as yet _still_ unnamed woman, elegant and haughty and vicious – really, swans were the perfect counterpart.

The song was the end of the saga, ending just how Jaskier expected his life to – trailing happily behind his Witcher, content to watch and love and sing, no matter how much it hurt to never be loved back, or to watch Geralt with Yennefer and know he’ll never be in his witcher’s arms like that.

He gets a riotous cheer and plenty of sighing ladies from the crowd – plenty of coin as well. They’re in a city, at a large and respectable tavern, so really, there was no better place to perform it. And as he goes to the bar, the women smiling anywhere from adoringly to pityingly is not quite unwelcome either. Jaskier’s sure to find a bedmate, should he want for one tonight.

For now, two tankards of decent mead in hand and two plates of food requested, Jaskier trots over to the corner table where Geralt is seated. Geralt accepted the mead with a grateful nod, eyeing the bard critically.

“Oh, Geralt, don’t tell me there’s something on my face!” Jaskier exclaimed, patting at his cheeks in response to the scrutiny.

“No,” Geralt huffed, not looking away.

“Then please do tell me why you’re staring at me like that. Don’t get me wrong, I am a _delight_ to look at, but frankly your gaze is so critical I can feel it like it stings. Oh, no, don’t tell me you don’t like the song? I swear, Geralt, _The Woman i-_ “

“I didn’t know you’d fallen in love,” Geralt stated, settling back in his chair, still not looking away.

“What? Geralt, you know me, I fall in love every day with a hundred different people, really, how is this a surprise?” Jaskier laughed.

“Not like this.”

Jaskier was quiet for a moment, before sighing.

“Would you believe she’s make believe?” Jaskier tried.

“I can smell your emotions, Jaskier. You smell like love and pain,” Geralt grunted.

“Love and pain, hm?” Jaskier pondered on it, wondering what exactly _love_ and _pain_ smelt like. If he asked, Geralt probably wouldn’t answer – at least not in the prose Jaskier wanted to know the answer in. Honey and fresh air and the warmth of a fire, for love, perhaps. Ash and ice for pain, maybe.

“You’re right, not like this. She… she is my everything,” Jaskier quietly conceded, swirling his mead in its tankard. They were both quiet for some time, Jaskier trying not to fidget, mind racing as he tried to figure out what Geralt was thinking. Geralt, as observant and brilliant as he was, would never guess that the woman was _him_ , so that was safe. But if he pressed, if he asked for more details on her -

“Why do you love her?” Geralt frowned, turning to look at his mead.

“I – what?” Jaskier replied, tripping over the words.

“The woman. This is what, the sixth song about her? You’ve sung of her cruelty.”

Jaskier tried not to fidget as he tried to think of a suitable answer, one that Geralt would find acceptable. He’d not realised before now that Geralt had picked up on the woman being someone real, rather than just a series of songs about a make-believe love, and here his witcher was, asking about it. He sighed, answering simply with, “If you knew her as I do, you’d understand. How could I not?”

Geralt _hmm’d_ to himself, sipping his mead, but blessedly left it alone.

-

After the mountain, after Geralt tears his heart in two for good, Jaskier adds one more song to the cycle of _The Woman in White_. It’s not an _official_ entry – doesn’t carry the conjoining melody of the others, or contain the same characters, of either bard and noble lady, or lark and swan. It’s a haunting, broken thing, about not even being allowed to love who you love, of being cast away and unwanted.

He doesn’t perform it, not for anyone. He doesn’t need to. It’s his, the last part of himself that still belongs to him is his _grief_ – he showed all of himself to the world, to Geralt, his love and passion and humour and care and skill and pain and all. If there is one thing he will keep for himself, it is his agony at the loss of the one thing that mattered.

Jaskier goes back to Oxenfurt. Takes a more permanent teaching contract. It takes him months to put himself together enough to play anything other than what’s necessary in his classroom – months before he can sing and dance in a tavern again. It takes longer still for him to break the habit of looking to the corner each time he sings a song about witchers, about the White Wolf.

No matter how much he tries, he cannot stomach singing any part of _The Woman in White_ again.

-

Cirilla comes to him on a dreary Saturday. She’s with a band of troubadours, who had recognised his name when Ciri had asked after him. It made sense – Jaskier was forever guilty of sticking his fingers into different pies, and he had returned to Cintra as often as Calanthe could stand him to. And it was no secret he travelled with the White Wolf. He was familiar to Ciri, and doubtless she found the bard comforting after the many hells she’d lived.

It stung, to know he’d have to seek Geralt out. To go against the witcher’s _one blessing_. But Ciri needed Geralt, and Jaskier could not protect her. Oxenfurt University was a fortress, yes, but one of scholars and artists, not of warriors, and certainly not of people who would be willing to protect the hunted Lion Cub.

But to find Geralt… Jaskier wouldn’t even know where to start. He knew Kaer Morhen was in the mountains, but which mountains? Where? He could set out a contract, yes, but without an actual monster to slay, if any other witcher collected it, it would be risky. Eventually, the idea came to him from Ciri herself. She had a tendency to poke her nose into _everything_ , her curiosity insatiable, and had dug up one of his old, sealed notebooks.

So he writes a song, weaves _The Woman in White’s_ melody throughout, about the child the lady and the bard take on, a sweet little thing with a _voice like a roar_. It treads the line between stupidly blatant and painfully obvious, by which Jaskier means it walks with one foot on either side. Jaskier can only hope that Geralt hears it before Nilfgaard does. Given his darling Priscilla was gallivanting about the countryside sharing his song, he could only hope that if they did hear first, Geralt would hear soon after and move _quicker_.

He squirrels Ciri away in a cottage outside the city, bought with the coin he’d saved while working at the University. There, she would hopefully, be kept out of sight of others – if no one could see her, Jaskier reasoned, then no one could know who she is or that she’s with him. It’s a simple, stupid plan, but it’s all they have.

When Geralt turns up on his doorstep, the first thing from his lips is _Ciri_. Jaskier isn’t surprised. He leaves them be, busying himself outside so the witcher and his Child Surprise can make themselves acquainted. When Ciri calls him back inside, he expects to be told their travel plans, and to say a reluctant goodbye to the sweet little girl. Maybe to trade a nod and farewell with Geralt, if the witcher was feeling amicable enough to.

He was _not_ expecting Ciri to excuse herself, and to have Geralt drop to his knees before him.

“I’m sorry, Jaskier, I’m so _sorry_ ,” Geralt plead, eyes desperate and frantic and –

And Jaskier looks, and _sees_ , for the first time. There is regret, there, and sorrow, and pain. A weight over Geralt’s whole being that wasn’t there the last time. And there is a desperate, silent plea, for forgiveness, for an absolution that Geralt is clearly not expecting.

But most crucially, there is _love_ there, in those bright, remorseful eyes. It’s there in the way Geralt’s lips and tongue curl around his name; in the way he kneels, in the warmth of his hand as Jaskier pulls him up. In the strength of his arms around him and the softness of his tears and in a million things Jaskier had somehow never noticed before.

-

It’s not perfect. It takes a while for them both to get the words out – _I love you_ is not something either of them say easily. Jaskier says it in his music; Geralt says it in his touch. But they learn, and they learn with Ciri keeping them grounded. There are _I’m sorry_ s and _I forgive you_ s aplenty, with no _it’s okay_ s because they both know it’s not, and they take their time to learn where they now stand with this new dynamic.

Jaskier doesn’t want to rush it and have them both be burned. He needs to learn how to understand Geralt’s love, just as Geralt needs to learn to understand his. The damned witcher had even said some rubbish about never expecting to be loved back – Jaskier had thought him blind, but, well, the bard was guilty of exactly the same.

The trek to Kaer Morhen was the perfect time for them to _learn_ to see, and to learn to accept the love that they each had for the other. Jaskier was ecstatic, to say the least, and found music returning to him with an ease he had never expected it to. Now was one such time – a good campfire, a good meal, and good company. Perfect for a good song.

“Are you going to play one of the love songs for Geralt?” Ciri asked when he fetched his lute, and it was innocent enough, except –

“You wrote me love songs?” Geralt snorted, turning the spitted rabbits.

“Ciri, please _don't,_ " Jaskier hissed.

“He doesn’t _know_?” she gasped, looking at Jaskier with faux-shock. He’d told her about them in _good faith_ , damnit, and now she was ratting him out.

“Cirilla Fiona Elen Rhiannon, by all the Gods, do _not_ continue,” Jaskier snapped, hunching in on himself against Geralt’s quirked brow.

“He wrote an _entire cycle_ about all his angst about loving you. Just changed it so it would be about some mean cow instead of you, so you wouldn’t guess. He’s got whole _books_ of prose on you – he won’t let me read most of it, but still.”

“Ciri –“ Jaskier spits out, cheeks bright red, and her grin is _far_ too devious for a thirteen year old. And Geralt – Geralt’s looking at him with a mixture of shock and discomfort and realisation, and _shit_. Jaskier can see it all falling into place on Geralt’s face.

Jaskier can see as Geralt is recalling lines about eyes in dreams and smiles lighting days; attention enriching him, and of Jaskier’s heart stuttering at a shared gaze. Of heartbreak at a competitor, and of the simple joy of loving regardless of being loved in turn. Of Jaskier _belonging beside_. He can see as Geralt filters out the rot of the woman and focuses on Jaskier’s words about love. _Fuck_ , he thinks desperately.

But then Geralt _smiles_ and its like the sun, warming Jaskier to the core, and, well. Jaskier can work with that. And if he can feel the stirrings of a new song, one he wants to sing, an _honest_ one, about the witcher he loves and their mischievous little lion cub, well. This time he _can_ write it, and _can_ sing it. So he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. – Khalil Gibran  
> Please leave a kudo or comment if you’ve enjoyed!


End file.
